By Shelley A. Gable

At some point, we’ve all had to go through a training course we weren’t interested in. Maybe you found the content to be boring, or you felt it didn’t apply to you. Either way, it’s challenging to learn something new when you’re not motivated to learn it in the first place.

Of course, when you’re required to complete a particular course, you have to find a way to make it work. And if you’re going to be tested on the information presented in that course, then you also need to make sure you actually learn something along the way.

How can you motivate yourself to learn?

Try applying the ARCS model when you’re completing an online course. John Keller, an educational psychology researcher, proposed ARCS as a motivational model for educators to follow to motivate students to learn.

ARCS is an acronym for:

• Attention
• Relevance
• Confidence
• Satisfaction

Let’s take a look at how each of these pieces can help motivate you when you’re completing online training.

Attention

One of the most demotivating feelings you may experience at some point during a course is boredom. The attention piece of the ARCS model is about capturing and maintaining your interest and curiosity in a topic.

So how can you overcome boredom?

• Take breaks throughout the online course. Completing a course in bite-size chunks will help keep your perspective fresh by breaking up the potential feeling of monotony.
• Quiz yourself periodically. When you reach topical transitions in the online course, take a moment to recall as much information from the previous section as you can. This can help keep your mind active and engaged.
• Take notes with a purpose. If you’re focused enough on the content to take meaningful notes, you’re more likely to remain attentive. An earlier post on this blog (How Can Note Taking Help You with Online Learning?) offers suggestions for taking notes effectively.

Relevance

Nobody likes to have their time wasted, which is why relevance is an important component of learning motivation. A course is relevant when you feel like you’re actually going to benefit from what you’re learning, and you believe that the course will help you meet your individual needs and goals.

How can you create a sense of relevance, when it might not be immediately obvious?

• Start with a positive attitude and attempt to anticipate how the course content will benefit you on the job. Take a moment to consider this before digging into the course, and make it a point to continue pondering this throughout the course.
• Ask a manager or your peers why they feel the topic is important. If you’re required to take a course and you’re held accountable for learning its information, someone must think it’s important!
• If you’re struggling to pinpoint how the content is relevant for you, figure out who it might be relevant for. If the topic is applicable to others you interact with, you may be able to draw conclusions about how learning this information can help you build your relationships with those people.

Confidence

Although we may be reluctant to admit it at first, sometimes we lack the motivation to learn about something we think will be difficult. Confidence is part of this motivation model, because we tend to be more eager to learn something when we believe we can do so successfully. And I think most of us can agree that there are some complicated topics that can come with insurance continuing education.

So how can you boost your confidence during an online course?

• Think about your peers who have successfully completed the course (or one like it) and mastered the content. If others can master the content, then surely it’s not an impossible task. You might even ask your peers for suggestions to help you be successful.
• Pace yourself. Trying to process too much information (especially complex information) in one sitting can be overwhelming. Break the course down into logical chunks, mastering each chunk individually. This will help build a sense of accomplishment as you complete the course.

Satisfaction

Have you ever been excited about learning something new, only to have some of that excitement deflate if you don’t get a chance to use that new knowledge right away? Create a feeling of satisfaction with your learning by taking the opportunity to showcase what you’ve learned. Satisfaction is about putting that newly learned knowledge to work.

How do you create opportunities to showcase your new knowledge?

• Make it a point to do a task the very next day (or maybe even that day!) that requires you to apply what you’ve just learned. It’ll create a sense of satisfaction for the learning you’ve accomplished and give you an opportunity to test your new skills.
• Talk to others about what you’ve learned. Talking about your newly learned knowledge will help reinforce it in your memory, and you may gain deeper insight into the topic by listening to another person’s perspective.

The thing that’s great about online learning is its flexibility. You can complete it in small chunks, progress at your own pace, and refer back to it as needed. This allows you learn and motivate yourself using the best techniques for you.

What motivates you when you’re completing an online continuing education course? If you have a motivational suggestion not offered here, please share it in the comments!

___

If you appreciate these ideas, it’d be swell if you would share them (button below) or subscribe via the feed.

Click here for 5 reasons why you should subscribe!

Interested in sales?  Perhaps Insurance, Real Estate, or Finance is your calling..  Click here to get licensed.

Need your Insurance Continuing Education?..Click here to take your continuing education classes online.

___

Shelley A. Gable is an instructional designer and freelance writer. She has developed training for functions such as financial services, call centers, and engineering education. Shelley has written articles on topics related to training and management for print and online publications. Visit Shelley’s website at http://shelleygable.webs.com.

 Print This Post